The Moth

Check this guy out! I found this moth on the front porch walk this morning. Still alive, but twitchy, and the sun rising and getting warm, I didn't think he was going to do very well. So I hid him under the hostas. I showed Chris, and Chris said, I have seen that caterpillar. I thought he was babbling, but was happy that he was happy about seeing nature in our yard.

This evening, I popped out, to see if he'd survived. He was gone. That made me happy. So I looked it up and apparently he/she was a Luna Moth, and Chris was right! We have seen that caterpillar around here before, a big fat green one the same color as the moth's wings. I recall seeing it last spring/summer, but not having my camera with me at the time...that'll teach me to run around without my camera. Still, pretty nifty. This moth was as big as my hand!

The end of an era

My friend Amy has moved to northern Indiana. Seems very far away. Especially now that our children have officially graduated from Kindergarten. I can't believe it. It seems just yesterday they started preschool together three years ago.



Now they are Preschool Graduates. And so old and mature...ok, well, Bryn is more mature. ;)



How fast time flies. I wanted to say more, but its just not fair. This is truly one of those Bittersweet moments. So sweet, our kids are growing up, my boy is going to be in kindergarten next year. I'm so proud of him, and happy for him. But at the same time, so bitter, so sad we aren't going to see our friends every day, not even every other week. The internet is nice and all, but it's no substitute for a good old fashioned hug between friends.

Action pics

That darned Pioneer Woman held another of her contests. I had a lot of fun with this one. I did take a couple this week to post to the contest, but of course didn't win anything, but some of these photos are some of my all time favorites, so I thought I'd show you guys, my 3 fans.

This one was Bryn taking a picture of Chris..."On the catwalk, on the catwalk yeah, he shakes his little tush on the catwalk..." And the 'Be a Photographer' in the background cracks me up too.



And Charlie eating her plate of birthday cake.



More from my repetoire: Chris and The infamous Forward Roll!



Chris washes apples, getting ready for Saucing. ;)



The action in the background really tells you how fast little cousin Cameron (who's only 6 weeks older than Sam) was pushing Chris on the chair, despite many obstacles of dogs, toys and other children.



Now I didn't used to be a cat person, but this cat made me one. I miss him. Dusty mid-sneeze, or mid-yawn, hard to tell.



Fina and the amazing Pup Cup from Starbucks.



And my favorite, from my Joy of Love class, the assignment was Self Portrait. But a tickle fight ensued during the camera countdown.



Though honestly, this is kind of a self portrait of my life. Me with boys going crazy action around me.

Food Photography...sort of

Well, last week, The Pioneer Woman posted a Link to a free food photography seminar that was going to be this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 10 a.m. Pacific time...I thought, hey that's 1 p.m. I could get the kids down in time to sit in on that class. Imagine my surprise, when I sat down at naptime Friday for what was going to be the start of 3 6 hour sessions. Yeah, so not gonna happen. I tried sitting in on it. But ended up missing most of it, for small but mostly sweet reasons. But I did catch a couple hours over these last couple days.

The person leading was Penny De Los Santos, who is a food photographer for Saveur magazine, but does work for National Geographic on occasion too. Here's what I learned this weekend. She likes to shoot from one of 3 angles, overhead (tricky to get to without a stepladder!), straight side shot, or 3/4. Side shots are best for high things, and overhead gives you more detail of subject.

Here's another thing I learned: My photography gifts don't lie in Food Photography.

She spends so much time prepping and 'making pictures' that the food is no good. I just couldn't do that. She doesn't eat it either. I don't think I could do that. Now, I suppose if I was getting PAID to not eat the food I might be tempted. But the work I do does not involve getting paid.

She had some great advice on the first day about being a photographer. She uses a Canon camera. :) A great beast, with a 24-105mm lens, and some nifty hood on the end. Yesterday she did a shoot on a couple things, with this giant ladder, and it looked like she was zooming in on the food from 5 feet up. Not my thing either. That would kill my back. I watched as she chased some cooks around a little taco cart, but that was tricky too. I did enjoy that she doesn't mess with scoops of crisco instead of ice cream and stuff like that. And she uses natural light. If the food doesn't lend itself to being photographed, she choose something else, a different prop, or add color enhancing foods to it. Hmm...it was interesting, but made me kind of hungry.

Color, light, depth of field, all kinds of interesting factors, that really made me want to crack out my book that Daddy got me for my Study of Photography...which I confess is in hiding. It might be under my bed, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, the first day, she gave an assignment, for us to shoot our food community; people, places, ingredients. Given that we were having an all pajama morning, for us it was just a photo shoot over breakfast.

I call this series: Blueberry bagel breakfast.









Not much fancy, but fun. So I'm not destined to be a food photographer, but that's ok, I like to take pictures of my boys, flowers, and places we visit. Sometimes food is involved in that, and sometimes its not. Meanwhile, my sweet Beast (my camera) took a nasty tumble at the Children's Museum, and is acting on the fritz. Maybe I can go take her to see the camera guys.

All Kinds of Productive

Special Delivery yesterday. Doors. Lots of doors. Almost a beautiful amount of doors and frames, like a dozen of them all told.



And 'The Guys' brought a snort over, Eric says it' a trench digger, my guess is they'll come back, when it's not raining and put the gutters to drain in the dirt, and trench it out into the yard. It's almost like Yard Work, yahoo!




AND Eric finished painting the ceiling touchups. And started the next phase....Cabinet building!




He finished working on stuff and worked another 6 hours and built 8 cabinets! Today then he put together 10 more and started the process of mounting them!



I love my kitchen window. Can't you just see a plant growing here, or a birdfeeder just outside. Ahh...



Yeah baby, nice shelves!



That is going to be some kind of snazzy kitchen!

Members Night

I love going to The Children's Museum on Members Night.



They only offer it every couple months or so, but there's No Field Trips. No big kids running wild running over my children. All the kids running around have parents close behind. We pack a picnic dinner, and have a free evening with friends. This was my second. The boys and I arrived first and visited the dinosaurs. Chris and Sam ventured forth hand in hand, such sweet brothers.



Together, the sweetboys do a little archeological digging.



Though, honestly, it's the goggles that really do it!



Two little dinos sitting on eggs in a nest.



It was perfect timing, just about the time the boys were done playing Dinosaurs, our friends arrived! So we all went up to the Barbie exhibit. Nothing says fun with the friends like duking it out over the Barbie phones.



We had some budding photographers, and a couple budding models.



Work that neon green skirt Sam! I swear, HE picked it out. I just put it on. ;)



Brett and Bryn took great turns playing photographers while my boys modeled.



Chris says Word Up. Better than 'I'm a Barbie Girl...in a Barbie World'. That song repeats, and wears me out.



We had a great dinner, visited 'Egypt', though really I think most parents just chased their kids through that exhibit, and sat down while the kids played with the fireworks of glass models in the basement.



Sam and I took a lap or two on the rotating seat that turns underneath the glass ceiling. A self portrait. He's a sneaky minx, but we had a great trip, but I was TIRED when we got home, it was the most I'd done at that museum in quite a while.

Flowers for Friday

Lo! Grandma's irises are blooming!



Even the boys are a little happy to see them blooming.